During my last couple of days in Arctic Norway I noticed the leaves beginning to yellow and the temperature dropping close to freezing each night. Autumn comes early in the Arctic and I realised I would be chasing the tail of summer as it receeded south. Having befriended a generous bunch who work in the Alta cinema (and provided me with all the free popcorn, drinks and films I could have dreamt of) I was sad to leave the city.

Tobias the Swedish Viking, Norway

However, a day's ride south I joined up with Tobias, a cheerful Swedish cyclist whose long auburn hair and flaming beard lent him a decidedly Viking air. I left him a day later when I turned left for Finland and he continued homeward.

Sunset in the Boreal, Finalnd

I delved back into the vast Boreal forest and once more became dwarved by the endless greeness which stubornly defies adequate description. My first day in Suomi (native name for Finland) marked my 23rd birthday and, fittingly for a Friday 13th, I celebrated with two broken spokes and my first puncture. The next day was passed fighting and cursing a furious headwind and the following day sailing effortlessly along with a swift tailwind.

Finland is an anomoly. Geographically it firmly belongs to Scandanavia but it feels culturally closer to Russia and linguistically has more in common with Hungary. There is even a subtle difference in ethnicity; it is just visible that the Finnish population has historically intermarried more with the Asiatic Saami.

There are two national pasttimes: saunas and motorsports. Many rural houses have a private sauna and every small town owns a tribe of tiresome teenagers who roar aimlessly up and down the main street on tiny dirtbikes, often trying to hold shouted conversations through their helmets and over their engines.

Hellevi and Juhani in their Studio, Finland

One morning in Lapland, I followed a track a hundred yards off the road to ask for directions. At the end I found a small pottery studio and two welcoming smiles. The smiles belonged to Hellevi and Juhani who have been married for 40 years and have built the most peaceful and idyllic life together in their rustic wooden house with its garden sloping down to an immaculate lake. We ate a brunch of homemade yoghurt and handpicked berries from the forest. Over a cup of coffee Hellevi told me how they use one of their two saunas (electric and wood-burning) and swim in the lake every day. When it freezes over in winter they use a small electric churn to keep a little pocket unfrozen for their daily dip. During winter she walks out onto the lake with a matress and lies down to look at the perfectly un-light-polluted night sky. Directions in hand, I left them feeling a mixture of admiration, envy and guilt (having just refused the money they offered me to help me on my journey).

I enjoyed a week of glorious sunshine during which I passed the Sametinget (Saami Parliament) building which is shaped like a vast post-modern wigwam. At night I camped wherever I pleased, picking wild blueberries for breakfast and enjoying the posturepedic quality of the thickly moss-covered forest floor. I crossed out of the Arctic Circle near Rovaniemi which suffers from the glib dubbing "Santa City". However, they doubtlessly profit from the busloads of tourists attracted to the Santa Claus Village. It was bright, warm and sunny with not a snowdrop in sight when I wheeled through the place where Christmas songs play on loudspeakers every day and the staff are dressed as elves. Usually it costs €20 for a photo with Santa but I managed to wangle a free one and was wished a very 'Merry Christmas' by a lovable-looking bloke with a brilliantly billowing white beard.

Having a cup of Lifeboat Tea with Santa Clause, Lapland

Approaching Helsinki the sun was setting noticeably earlier and there was once more proper darkness allowing me to gawp at a swollen Mars for a couple of nights as it passed especially close to us in its orbit. I spent a night camped in a park bush in a northern suburb of Helsinki afflicted with liquified insides having accepted a free energy drink in a supermarket promotion. Stay away from Rock Star Energy Cola!

It drizzled during my day in the capital and I managed a comedy wipeout on a slippery tramline which resulted in a busy street, cars included, stopping and laughing heartily . I visited the Museum of Helsinki and quickly formed the impression that the unfortunate city's past consists of being conquered alternatively again and again by differing foreign invaders.

Medieval City gate in Tallinn, Estonia

The short ferry (across the Gulf of Helsinki to Tallinn in Estonia) was rough and mine wasn't the only green face to disembark. As my still-somersaulting stomach settled I found myself transported into a different world; rattling along the cobbled streets of the medieval city and getting to grips with the markedly less patient traffic were the first challenges. Everything cost half what it did in Finland and about a third what it did in Norway.

I shot south through the Baltic States (which are mostly flat) and in Latvia's capital, Riga, began retracing part of my route from when I drove home from Mongolia last summer. Accordingly, it may have been an instance of deja vu in Lithuania that caused my first full-speed fall. I was wobbling along performing a tightrope act (made necessary by the ridges and ruts as deep as 12 inches which have formed on the edge of the roads due to liberally-overladen lorries) when my front wheel slipped off the tarmac and bit deeply into the sandy verge. When a front wheel goes abruptly from 16mph to standstill, the rear wheel and helpless rider have little choice but to accept a couple of moments of airborne glory before meeting their earthy fate. I landed in an ugly sprawl, half on and half off the road. I looked up instantly to see if I was soon to be squashed and saw a car load of faces gawping as they slowly passed before accelerating aggressively and kicking up some grit in my disheartened direction. Luckily I was only scratched and bruised and made my peace with Lithuanians a few miles further on where a farmer allowed me to camp in his garden and took me for a walk around his small orchard, gibbering gleefully and filling my hands with apples, pears and plums.

'Los Kostras' from Madrid, Lithuania

The next day I met a grinning group of Spanish cyclists who had come from Madrid and had formed a club called "Los Kostras" which roughly translates as "The Scabs" - a fitting label for a collective as smelly as me, half of whom had grown an uncanny resemblance to Jesus (or "hey-zeus" as they pronounced it).

As I sped along I was often mesmerised by the vast flocks of small migratory birds (my interest/knowledge doesn't extend to names) marshalling for their imminent journey south. My relatively new twitching tendancy thrived on watching them when disturbed from the waterlogged fields by passing traffic. They would gradually take-off in a sweeping succession, like a label being peeled off the land, before jinking and diving and swooping in no particular direction but with strangely anarchic uniformity, not unlike waves in a storm-tossed sea.

The Baltic states bore signs of their former Soviet status at every turn. Some of the smaller towns I passed through (often with unpronounceable names) felt as though they were frozen in time; living out a ceaseless stereotype of the USSR in the late 80s. Portly babushkas, clad in curtain-like skirts with hankerchiefs for shawls, selling hand-gathered mushrooms and berries at the roadside; large, characterless blocks of buildings left abandonned to an unaesthetic decay on the outskirts; antiquated tractors bouncing and wheezing along the pot-holed streets; tracksuits instead of business suits; grey sprawls of suburbs with grass thriving on the once-paved pathways; lean, elderly men on bicycles that look older than themselves; lithe, leering teenage boys in small packs on street corners with close haircuts and bottles of beer; and of course many magnificent moustaches of all shapes and sizes to rival 19th century portraits of officers from the Queen's Royal Hussars.

I also noticed a significant rise in the amount of roadkill. Little woodland critters scattered sickeningly over twenty yards of tarmac; most disturbing were the dead dogs. One morning I morbidly counted four bodged badgers, two pancaked pooches and a flat fox in less than five miles of road.

Over-sized police station in relatively small town, Poland

The moment I passed into Poland the land rippled and creased into the gentle sort of hills barely perceptible to drivers but gradually grinding to cyclists. I'm ashamed to say that my portrait of Poland so far is unfairly (and perhaps callously) coloured by the weather. For the last 48 hours it hasn't stopped raining for one minute. A heavy, cold, penetrative rain that gives a dreary dark grey to the already dank pastel shades of the thoroughly sodden farmland that stretches to the close and blurred horizon. As I slog doggedly along my bitumen balance-beam ridge on the edge of the river-esque road, it rains from all directions: naturally from above, upwards into my face from the back of my front wheel, and violently from the side as lorries sweep past, sometimes providing me with the physical sensation of a slap in the face from a shark's fin. In these conditions my waterproofs serve only to retain the mass of moisture that casually bypasses them.

Warning for uneven surfaces, Poland

Yesterday I heard a deep and resonant screech of brakes close behind me and instinctively steered off the road and down a steep bank. Just before I ploughed into the thankfully unthorny hedge (and midway through an expressive expletive banned on the BBC) I glimpsed a road train (lorry with a trailer) steam through the exact spot I had occupied a moment before. Camping when everything is wet is no fun and at night I drift off dreading the following day's 80 miles of misery. I'm adhereing to the philosophy coined by previous cycle tourists Rob Lilwall and Al Humphreys of "miles not smiles". It's not a case of grinning and bearing it but simply of bearing it.

However, it's not all doom and gloom. I'm enjoying the challenge in a perverse way and the satisfaction from miles covered is continual. I'm also racing ever closer to Szeged in Hungary where I will soon luxuriate in a few days R&R with my brother-in-law's parents. I dare say the odd glass of palinka will be sampled.

Just to say I've been really enjoying reading your blogs and letting my imagination picture your surrounds and experiences. I've now started watching a couple of Rob Lidwall episodes in his series broadcast on the National Geographic Adventure channel over here in Sri Lanka. He films himself on his journey. I can appreciate that that cycling gig is tough. Hats off.

Also watched the film Into The Wild the other day (one of the few instances where the film is better than the book). I imagine you've heard about it...just be careful what berries you decide to eat for breakfast!

Good luck Charlie. Keep on truckin'...

Reply

Harry Santa-Olalla

13/9/2010 06:38:46 am

Loving your blogs Chalks. We are all missing you lots. A large contingent met yesterday at The Ship where we were all discussing your adventures and blogs. We raised a glass to you...

It's only a matter of time until I book a ticket to join you wherever you are...

clearly like your web site nonetheless you want to take a look at the spelling on quite several of your posts. Several of them are rife with spelling difficulties and I to find it extremely bothersome to inform the reality nevertheless certainly come once more once again.

Reply

Keith

21/4/2013 12:20:49 pm

That was just the most amusing comment I've read on a blog for the longest time....well done Benjamin! Love this blog too and hope Cairo is looking after Charlie and his bike.

Glad that i have found you guys. i have never been to Finland but as a child i always aspired to make a visit. Since i lack information about the place,i always searched for in depth facts about the same. You guys ahve helped me to understand the peculiarities of finland,thereby made an urge to visit the place. Good information folks.Regards